Most people I talk to about modafinil seem to use it for daytime usage; for me that has not ever worked out well, but I had nothing in particular to show against it. So, as I was capping the last of my piracetam-caffeine mix and clearing off my desk, I put the 4 remaining Modalerts pills into capsules with the last of my creatine powder and then mixed them with 4 of the theanine-creatine pills. Like the previous Adderall trial, I will pick one pill blindly each day and guess at the end which it was. If it was active (modafinil-creatine), take a break the next day; if placebo (theanine-creatine), replace the placebo and try again the next day. We’ll see if I notice anything on DNB or possibly gwern.net edits.
Siberian Ginseng: Also known as Eleutherococcus senticosus, this herb is native to Russia, China, Japan and other areas of east Asia. There is not a lot of western research backing Siberian Ginseng as a nootropic yet, but the supplement has been used in traditional medicine in the Far East for quite some time. Plenty of anecdotal evidence backs it up as an excellent memory and attention enhancer.
So, I thought I might as well experiment since I have it. I put the 23 remaining pills into gel capsules with brown rice as filling, made ~30 placebo capsules, and will use the one-bag blinding/randomization method. I don’t want to spend the time it would take to n-back every day, so I will simply look for an effect on my daily mood/productivity self-rating; hopefully Noopept will add a little on average above and beyond my existing practices like caffeine+piracetam (yes, Noopept may be as good as piracetam, but since I still have a ton of piracetam from my 3kg order, I am primarily interested in whether Noopept adds onto piracetam rather than replaces). 10mg doses seem to be on the low side for Noopept users, weakening the effect, but on the other hand, if I were to take 2 capsules at a time, then I’d halve the sample size; it’s not clear what is the optimal tradeoff between dose and n for statistical power.

1 PM; overall this was a pretty productive day, but I can’t say it was very productive. I would almost say even odds, but for some reason I feel a little more inclined towards modafinil. Say 55%. That night’s sleep was vile: the Zeo says it took me 40 minutes to fall asleep, I only slept 7:37 total, and I woke up 7 times. I’m comfortable taking this as evidence of modafinil (half-life 10 hours, 1 PM to midnight is only 1 full halving), bumping my prediction to 75%. I check, and sure enough - modafinil.

Finding a usable product on Amazon caused me some difficulties. I wanted a 500mg magnesium-citrate-only product at
Last winter, I spoke again with Alex, the Harvard graduate, and found that, after a break of several months, he had gone back to taking Adderall - a small dose every day. He felt that he was learning to use the drug in a more "disciplined" manner. Now, he said, it was less about staying up late to finish work he should have done earlier, and more "about staying focused on work, which makes me want to work longer hours". What employer would object to that?
It's been widely reported that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and college students turn to Adderall (without a prescription) to work late through the night. In fact, a 2012 study published in the Journal of American College Health, showed that roughly two-thirds of undergraduate students were offered prescription stimulants for non-medical purposes by senior year.
A recent study at the University of Innsbruck in Austria found that participants that drank two cups of coffee per day improved memory, reaction time, and neuron signaling, more than the control. More notably, the 676 daily coffee drinker participants experienced less mental decline than nondrinkers over a ten-year period. In other words, bottoms up on your cup of Joe!
By analyzing the brain images, the team found that these patients, compared with people who weren’t susceptible to the placebo, had a difference in volume between the right and left sides of the limbic system in the brain, which is involved in instinct and mood. There were also differences in the number of nerve cell connections between the prefrontal cortex and other brain areas. Personality questionnaires revealed that these people had a higher self-awareness and openness than nonresponders.
The demands of university studies, career, and family responsibilities leaves people feeling stretched to the limit. Extreme stress actually interferes with optimal memory, focus, and performance. The discovery of nootropics and vitamins that make you smarter has provided a solution to help college students perform better in their classes and professionals become more productive and efficient at work.

Discussions of PEA mention that it’s almost useless without a MAOI to pave the way; hence, when I decided to get deprenyl and noticed that deprenyl is a MAOI, I decided to also give PEA a second chance in conjunction with deprenyl. Unfortunately, in part due to my own shenanigans, Nubrain canceled the deprenyl order and so I have 20g of PEA sitting around. Well, it’ll keep until such time as I do get a MAOI.

A total of 330 randomly selected Saudi adolescents were included. Anthropometrics were recorded and fasting blood samples were analyzed for routine analysis of fasting glucose, lipid levels, calcium, albumin and phosphorous. Frequency of coffee and tea intake was noted. 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays…Vitamin D levels were significantly highest among those consuming 9-12 cups of tea/week in all subjects (p-value 0.009) independent of age, gender, BMI, physical activity and sun exposure.
Capsule Connection sells 1000 00 pills (the largest pills) for $9. I already have a pill machine, so that doesn’t count (a sunk cost). If we sum the grams per day column from the first table, we get 9.75 grams a day. Each 00 pill can take around 0.75 grams, so we need 13 pills. (Creatine is very bulky, alas.) 13 pills per day for 1000 days is 13,000 pills, and 1,000 pills is $9 so we need 13 units and 13 times 9 is $117.
Christopher, love your heart for Pete’s security in who he is to The Lord. So cool. Brother, God does judge. Jesus is even referred to as “the righteous judge” (2 Timothy 4:8). In the first 5 verses of Romans 2, the judgment of God is even mentioned 3 times. Matthew 25:46 speaks of what will happen when God judges – that some “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior who died for their sins and rose again will be and are “by grace… saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8-9) in Jesus as such, having their sins forgiven and the righteousness of Jesus credited to them. (Romans 4:22-25) Thank you, Lord!

Seriously Man, you obviously have a deep love of God and the teachings of Jesus. You’re not being watched and judged like some kindergartener to make sure you obey the teacher. You were given a mind and free will to explore the world both physical and spiritual. If you do it in the spirit of God’s love and the love of four fellow man, AND YOURSELF….don’t forget God loves you too, then the only darkness here is the judgement you’re putting on yourself and your own actions. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within…..he meant within YOU, each of us. Your looking without and asking is it OK? If it brings you closer to the light of the spirit it’s OK, if you make a mistake, it’s OK. This very wise woman, brimming with God’s love said to me one day, with all the love and joy I’ve ever seen in someone’s heart………” I just had the most incredible realization.” ” What, I said” ” God forgives us for our sins before we even commit them” My hair immediately stood on end in response to the deep truth of this which to me is ,,,,,,,,,GOD, the UNIVERSAL SPIRIT WHICH IS ALL CREATION DOES NOT JUDGE” Judgement is in the prevue of Man in an effort to control other men. You are free, and always have been and always will be. You are loved, always have been and always will be. It just the way things are, it’s called perfection.

If you're still unsure about whether you should take GodMode gamer pills, definitely talk to your doctor. If that conversation goes well and you still aren't sold, Boss Level Labs provides a list of "pro users" of its product, which includes a handful of game developers, people who lift weights, someone who is a "celebrity financial advisor and motivational speaker," and a retired Hungarian chess grandmaster named Judit Polgár.
The evidence? A 2012 study in Greece found it can boost cognitive function in adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a type of disorder marked by forgetfulness and problems with language, judgement, or planning that are more severe than average “senior moments,” but are not serious enough to be diagnosed as dementia. In some people, MCI will progress into dementia.
Do you start your day with a cup (or two, or three) of coffee? It tastes delicious, but it’s also jump-starting your brain because of its caffeine content. Caffeine is definitely a nootropic substance—it’s a mild stimulant that can alleviate fatigue and improve concentration, according to the Mayo Clinic. Current research shows that coffee drinkers don’t suffer any ill effects from drinking up to about four cups of coffee per day. Caffeine is also found in tea, soda, and energy drinks. Not too surprisingly, it’s also in many of the nootropic supplements that are being marketed to people looking for a mental boost. Take a look at these 7 genius brain boosters to try in the morning.
Of course, before wrapping up this section on psychedelics, I’ll address the topics of where to actually buy the stuff. There are a variety of websites that sell psychedelics, but not all ingredient, chemical or quality sourcing is created equal, nor is there any guarantee that any substance you are purchasing is not laced with undesirable compounds. Heck, I get my psilocybin from a farmer in Wisconsin who is a personal friend, and other ingredients from close acquaintances who have their own sources. I know it may seem unfair, but sometimes sourcing comes down to “who ya know” and doing your own due diligence on that person’s source.
I posted a link to the survey on my Google+ account, and inserted the link at the top of all gwern.net pages; 51 people completed all 11 binary choices (most of them coming from North America & Europe), which seems adequate since the 11 questions are all asking the same question, and 561 responses to one question is quite a few. A few different statistical tests seem applicable: a chi-squared test whether there’s a difference between all the answers, a two-sample test on the averages, and most meaningfully, summing up the responses as a single pair of numbers and doing a binomial test:
Still, putting unregulated brain drugs into my system feels significantly scarier than downing a latte or a Red Bull—not least because the scientific research on nootropics’ long-term effects is still so thin. One 2014 study found that Ritalin, modafinil, ampakines, and other similar stimulants could eventually reduce the “plasticity” of some of the brain’s neural networks by providing them with too much dopamine, glutamate and norepinephrine, and potentially cause long-term harm in young people whose brains were still developing. (In fact, in young people, the researchers wrote, these stimulants could actually have the opposite effect the makers intended: “Healthy individuals run the risk of pushing themselves beyond optimal levels into hyperdopaminergic and hypernoradrenergic states, thus vitiating the very behaviors they are striving to improve.”) But the researchers found no evidence that normal doses of these drugs were harmful when taken by adults.
New psychiatric drugs have a way of creating markets for themselves. Disorders often become widely diagnosed after drugs come along that can alter a set of suboptimal behaviours. In this way Ritalin and Adderall helped make ADHD a household name, and advertisements for antidepressants have helped define shyness as a malady. If there's a pill that can clear up the wavering focus of sleep-deprived youth or mitigate the tip-of-the-tongue experience of middle age, then those rather ordinary states may come to be seen as syndromes.
Armodafinil is sort of a purified modafinil which Cephalon sells under the brand-name Nuvigil (and Sun under Waklert21). Armodafinil acts much the same way (see the ADS Drug Profile) but the modafinil variant filtered out are the faster-acting molecules22. Hence, it is supposed to last longer. as studies like Pharmacodynamic effects on alertness of single doses of armodafinil in healthy subjects during a nocturnal period of acute sleep loss seem to bear out; anecdotally, it’s also more powerful, with Cephalon offering pills with doses as low as 50mg. (To be technical, modafinil is racemic: it comes in two forms which are rotations, mirror-images of each other. The rotation usually doesn’t matter, but sometimes it matters tremendously - for example, one form of thalidomide stops morning sickness, and the other rotation causes hideous birth defects.)
There's no magic bullet to boost IQ or make you smarter -- but certain substances, like caffeine, can energize you and help you concentrate. Found in coffee, chocolate, energy drinks, and some medications, caffeine gives you that unmistakable wake-up buzz, though the effects are short-term. And more is often less: Overdo it on caffeine and it can make you jittery and uncomfortable.

l-Theanine – A 2014 systematic review and meta-analysis found that concurrent caffeine and l-theanine use had synergistic psychoactive effects that promoted alertness, attention, and task switching;[29] these effects were most pronounced during the first hour post-dose.[29] However, the European Food Safety Authority reported that, when L-theanine is used by itself (i.e. without caffeine), there is insufficient information to determine if these effects exist.[34]